First, he told her she was nuts to leave her job as an actor on an Emmy-winning cop show to become a broadcast journalist. Then he said, "Okay, if you really want to do this, you've got to do it right."
And that's how Jack Hubbard, associate director of the Stanford News Service and a former CBS producer, took on the apprenticeship of Andrea Thompson, a.k.a. Detective Jill Kirkendall, of NYPD Blue fame. Starting in April 1999 he gave her daily writing assignments, which she e-mailed back to Hubbard from the Los Angeles set of Blue. On weekends, Thompson flew to Stanford, where Hubbard taught her how to shoot stories in the field with a camera crew.
A year later, Thompson's demo tape landed her a job as a reporter for KRQE, the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque. Within days of being hired in May, she was out in the field, filing stories about the wildfires then threatening the Southwest. "She's got reporting instincts you can't teach," Hubbard says. "Cops love her, and everybody else wants to talk to her, too. Plus she has an incredible work ethic, putting in 12-hour days without whining. She really gives a damn." Memo to Diane Sawyer: watch your back.
